What Tribe are You?

There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.
  - P. J. O'Rourke

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
  - Michael Crichton

The proposed “Charter” from the PQ government in Quebec is causing quite a stir these days.  A lot of people, particularly from outside Quebec, are condemning it as being bigoted and against the Canadian Charter.  However, what has surprised me over the last few days are the number of writers who have come to the defence of Quebec’s proposed Charter, particularly here in Ottawa. 
The most telling of these was an article by a journalist named Dave Brown in the Ottawa Citizen.  He praised the Charter as a means of doing away with “tribalism” which he said was the cause of so many conflicts in the world.  He quoted a Canadian psychiatrist and diplomat, now dead, named Chisholm who had been a significant advocate of internationalism, the movement to set up one super international government to do away with future wars.  A nice thought if you can do it, but would we really just like to be considered as “earthlings”?

It’s true that you can pin a lot on “tribalism”.  You can blame it for bigotry, civil strife, civil war and war between countries.  But you can also attribute to it pride, a sense of belonging and nation building. 

But let’s go back to the Charter itself.  The premise behind it is really “if they only were like us,” meaning just like the advocates of the Charter.  If they only dressed like us, acted like us, thought like us, all would be well.  The “just like us” crowd in Quebec are the “pur laine”, old French speaking, conservative thinking people of Quebec.  There is nothing “progressive” in this Charter. 

The advocates of the Charter outside Quebec bear names like Brown, Chisholm and most recently Mathew Fisher.  They represent the majority “tribe”.  They have nothing to lose from such a Charter.  The sameness they want to foist on others is sameness to them.  Dress like me, act like me, think like me and all will be well.  We can all get along then.  The world will be safe from “otherness”. 

But that is the problem with this Charter, don’t you see.  What if I don’t want to dress, act and think like these people.  What am I to wear, how am I to act and think in, say Mumbai, Tokyo or Cairo?  I may act and dress like someone in Omaha but I don’t necessarily think like him.  So what is the “standard”?  Who is to set that “standard”?  What if I disagree with that standard? 

You see, it is diversity that makes us interesting.  Can you imagine how boring it would be to have a meaningful discussion on politics with people who totally agree with you?  It is diversity that brings progress.  If inventors had thought and acted like everyone else, there would be no inventions.  If clothiers all thought alike, we would still be wearing loin cloths (wouldn’t that be fun in Canada’s winter).  If writers weren’t diverse, we would have no literature.  “Great minds think alike; fools never differ,” is only true for the fools.  Great minds do differ and that is what makes them great.  Even in our everyday lives as members of the same “tribe”, we don’t dress alike nor act alike, never mind think alike.

So it is on this level that the PQ Charter and all those who support it are wrong.  We desperately need to embrace diversity; of dress, of action and mostly of thought.

One other thought about the Quebec Charter proposal; Madame Marois’ problem in that province is the clash between Montreal, the most cosmopolitan of cities, and the rest of Quebec.  This Charter is really aimed at Montreal and finding a way to vilify it.  If she could find a way to cut out the influence of Montreal, she would have a majority in any election and in a separation referendum.